[clug] minutes from last meeting

[Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au]

Darren wrote:

> * Silent room.
> * People start talking
> * Tridge gives an impromptu talk about GCC 3.4 using precompiled headers

Which work really well if you always include the same header file
in a large project (ala Samba). Less useful if all your header
files are different. Mirthful suggestion of distcc going from
innovation to obsolescence within 14 months.

> * Robert Rose, a member of the Democrats in ACT, discusses his foray 
> into free software legislation, and requests help from CLUG
> * Following that we have a talk on reverse-engineering the Laplink
> protocol under Linux. Featuring a 15 line Python script as a simple
> server / repeater.

Mikal asks why it wasn't written in shell script. :o)

Brad enthuses about Python and how such a simple script should
be easy to secure.

Upon seeing said script, Tridge finds security hole suitable for
a DoS attack. :o)


Hugh Fisher solicits suggestions on how to keep shared models in
a collaborative 3D world from going rampant and trashing stuff.
chroot jails suggested, and/or preload hacks to intercept and vet
potentially dangerous calls. Some discussion about an article in
New Scientist about code being distributed with a manifest that
exaplains what it does and a checker that is able to broadly
confirm that the structure of the actual code matches.

> * A brief period of boredom ensues, but then pizza arrives
> * The rest is pretty much history, especially as far as the pizza was
> concerned ;)